Hamnet (Unabridged)
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4.5 • 41 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • Now a major motion picture starring ACADEMY AWARD® winner Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, directed by Chloé Zhao.
The acclaimed author of the Reese's Book Club pick The Marriage Portrait delivers a deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son, Hamnet, and the years leading up to the production of his great play Hamlet.
"Miraculous. . . . Brilliant. . . . A novel told with the urgency of a whispered prayer—or curse. . . . A richly drawn and intimate portrait of 16th-century English life set against the arrival of one devastating death." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.
A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this imaginative “what if” historical account, fledgling playwright William Shakespeare is off to seek his fortune in London—but the most compelling drama happens with the family he leaves behind. Historians don’t know much about the Bard’s private life, but Maggie O’Farrell’s glorious novel imagines an intimate and engrossing story told from the perspective of his wife, Agnes. Blessed with the gift of psychic visions and a knowledge of plants, Agnes works as a local healer when she’s not caring for her three children. We loved being immersed in the rich everyday life of 16th-century England with her as our guide. But when Agnes and William’s 11-year-old son Hamnet dies, it leaves O’Farrell’s heroine utterly shattered—and inspires her absent husband to write one of his greatest works. Rich with warmth and playfulness despite the real-life tragedy at its center, Hamnet conjures a vivid portrait of an aspiring artist, an incredibly resilient woman, and the uncontrollable forces that shape them both. The story is mostly fiction, but its message about the humanity behind any great work of art still rings true.
Customer Reviews
Heartbreakingly brilliant
Jesse Buckley exquisitely narrates this mesmerizing tale of love and loss. I cannot recommend it enough, especially to parents, more especially to parents who have suffered a loss of a child and most, snd most especially to anyone who has suffered a loss and loves The Bard. I wish the film could’ve been a miniseries to include more of the magic the book holds.
Hard to turn off
This book is difficult to put down once you get to it. A complex web of human lives and its pains and an attempt to find solace when faced with unbearable loss